MH370 Anniversary: 'A Year On, I Believe Some Conspiracy Theories May Have Value'

Chandrika Sharma, who was on board MH370, seen here with her husband KS Narendran and their daughter.KS Narendran

Chandrika Sharma, who was on board MH370.KS Narendran

On Sunday, KS Narendran says he will take a quiet walk at the beach in Chennai, something he hasn't done in a while, as he recollects the lyrics of his wife Chandrika's favourite Hindi song "Tal mile nadi ke jal me, nadi mile sagar mein, sagar mile kaunse jal mein, koi jaane na" (The streams flow into the river, the river flows into the ocean, but no one knows where the waters of the ocean go).

It will be a year since he heard from his wife, who was on board the MH370 Malaysia Airlines plane that went missing on 8 March, 2014, veering towards becoming the biggest mystery in aviation history.

Narendran has been on an emotional roller-coaster since that day, and a year on, he says he is exhausted.

"I have had a wide range of emotions during the year. Shock and disbelief was replaced with anger and frustration vis-à-vis authorities, which in turn gave way to creeping sadness, loneliness, and listlessness. There is fatigue with puzzling over the invisible pieces of data. At this juncture, I am just exhausted and empty," he said.

The 51-year-old intends to wake up early on Sunday to head to the beach, to be close to sea, which he says is a metaphor for life.

"I don't remember that I have been to the beach in a while. A decade ago, we used to stay close to the Besant Nagar beach on Chennai. So we used to frequently go to the beach with our daughter," says Narendran. The couple's 19-year-old daughter studies in Delhi.

"The sea is for me a metaphor of life itself. That life is. Who is to say that an advancing wave is one that is born, or a wave that recedes is one that has died? While the enormity and the power of the sea frighten me, I am also drawn to it," he adds, revealing his poetic side.

But even as he looks at the sea as life itself, his own existence has become an endless wait.

I still struggle to pick myself up each day and to make each day count," he says.

As Narendran carries out his daily chores with a tinge of loneliness, on several occasions, he is left thinking about the deluge of conspiracy theories that have flooded ever since the plane's disappearance.

"Till a few months ago, I would have dismissed these theories as the work of someone's hyper imagination, but since official statements do not give any answers and because so much is not yet made available to us, we have to look at other possibilities," he says.

The conspiracy theories have ranged from the outlandish to the more believable, and Narendran feels that some offer new lines of inquiry to the mystery that is still nowhere close to its conclusion.

I am beginning to believe that these theories have a value. They prompt us to re-apprise known information, consider new narratives, however sinister, and hunt for new clues that may lend greater credence or explanatory power," he says.

"I don't have a pet theory nor all the information to believe one or the other theory, but I feel that what might seem like a page out of a thriller or a best-selling novel may well be true," he adds.

Narendran's change in attitude towards these theories may have stemmed from his anger at Malaysian authorities who declared the missing plane to have been lost in an accident, claiming that all 239 people on board were presumed dead.

"We still don't know what happened, why it happened, who let it happen, and where the plane is. It looks like more than offering closure to families, the government and the airlines themselves wanted closure," Narendran had told IBT India in an earlier interview.

As the answers still hang in the air, Narendran says he wants to move away from it all.

"I may stay away from any communications about MH370 unless I am required to respond. I want to move towards a brief period of quiet."